Bailey drops in on Ulrik in his eerie prison and leaves him no doubt as to where he stands with her.

When

It is early morning of the twenty-ninth day of the first month of the third turn of the 12th pass.

Where

Abandoned Eerie Weyr, Southern Weyr

OOC Date

Southern Weyr, Abandoned Eerie Weyr

One of the highest, loneliest weyrs over the hatching caverns, far removed from the rest, an oubliette where the winds cry in strangely discordant wailing harmonics.

There is no grey shade or bleak edges to the light that accompanies the heat of a Southern sunrise: Rukbat trickles warm golden rays to set everything awash in gilden lambency. This ledge, this weyr, settled sky-high above the hatching caverns, was likely originally intended to hold a visiting clutchfather: the only one of its kind, the ledge eastern-facing and well-lit by the time the first glow of direct sunlight has hit the bowl below. The ledge is big enough to hold an oldtimer bronze, which means it is nigh-spacious for Khalyssrielth's dangerous coils, replacing the brown that guarded the entrance before. The sunlight reflects off her dark-whorled glory, reflects ruddy highlights off the hair of the woman who dismounts. Ulrik has a visitor… or so it would seem.

Soft buttery sunlight setting the world a glow there may be but where there is light, so is there darkness and it’s within the shadows deep within the weyr that the current occupant lurks. The departure of the brown is apathetically noted but doesn’t draw the man clad in only grubby shorts and a vest out into the light. However, when a dragon of notably golden hue alights, there is a sound of movement and a glimmer of warm amber across dirt streaked skin of a hue more befitting a corpse for its lack of exposure to Rukbat’s caress. The woman that dismounts is of the wrong height and build entirely and draws a low rumble of discontent from the shadowy recesses but nothing more, just a baleful stare from out of the dark.

It's dark-gold, rose-gold, more reddened bronze than the platinum-loveliness of white-gold Dhiammarath. Khalyssrielth is unimpressed with the grubby man within; it shows in the disdainful manner of her head swung 'round to inspect this potential threat to her lifemate. She will eat you, small thing, and consider you not much more than a tiny tapas appetizer; tread softly in the presence of Southern's Ice Queen. Bailey tips her lifemate a single look, silent communication, before stepping into the gloom of the weyr proper. "Come out, come out, wherever you are," Bailey sing-songs, lifting from a pocket a tiny, hand-held glow. "Unless you prefer living in the dank, dark mire? I'm sure this could be arranged to be a permanent residence, if you take to being a troglodyte so readily."

Ulrik wouldn’t know one gold from the other given that the only dragon he’s had the dubious pleasure of ‘meeting’ is that which has been guarding the ledge until just now. Though there is no doubt in his mind that Khalyssrielth or any other dragon, would be only too quick to eat him. Perhaps that’s why he keeps to the shadows. Or it might be that he’s become half wher and thus somewhat photophobic. “You.” Recognition grates out in that one word. A breath is drawn to suggest there might have been more to add but is cut off when the words of advice from a certain scruffy bearded blonde are brought to mind. One step and then two are taken forward, just enough so that the convict is crosshatched in shadow and morning light, the expression Bailey is met with a façade carved from stone. “Come to see if I’ve learned how to fly without wings?” Dry the rasp of words.

"Me," Bailey confirms. Her lips curve upwards into a smile that isn't quite so friendly. "No, I imagine if you'd figured that one out, you'd have flown the coop by now." She stares at him for a long moment, thinking, calculating. Judging. "I don't know what she sees in you," Bailey finally states, flatly. "You are a scrub of a man who doesn't deserve to stand in her shade. Understand that if you hurt her, I will find you and rip your balls out of your nose, one at a time." Ulrik just brings out the best of Bailey, he really does. Silence stills around her, and she considers him for another, longer moment. "What's the deal with your cellmate?" Don't believe it, Ulrik — she's buttering you up for the real inquisition.

For all that he’s largely a man of few words, they more often than not carry biting sarcasm. Just now, it’s being clamped down on in favor of the beast scenting a trap being laid. Judgment, pity, revulsion, those are expression he sees on a daily basis, the one Bailey lays on him falling to the floor at his feet without reaction. To silence the convict continues to hold, eyes as flat as his expression. Its when the goldrider touches on the man he holds closer than a brother that a flicker of something breaks free and sets a certain tension about Ulrik. “This has nothing to do with him.”

Oh, look at that. "I have information that you dearly want to know," Bailey returns, a smile lifting at her lips. For the first time, it could be actual enjoyment that prompts it. Is she a sadist? Only when it comes to those who she feels may be a threat to those she loves. (And everyone else.) "Perhaps it has everything to do with him. Or maybe I just want to know why he worked so hard to cover for you. Are you business partners?" Her eyebrows lift in query. "Or lovers?"

And here we have an interesting situation for each of them is protecting someone close to them. There's no denying the snatch of worry that flicks an ominous gleam to green eyes at her first. "If you've hurt him because of me…" And while he might be powerless just now to carry out a threat of any kind, this is a creature with a long and terrible memory when it comes to those he loves being harmed. Finally, that facade breaks with an expressive roll of eyes and a rough snort and Ulrik steps further into the light. "I could ask the same of you about Hannah. What is she to you?" No pause is given for an answer. "We look out for each other."

"What if I have? What if I tell you he sounded so pretty, hissing out his breath rather than cry out?" If Bailey was sitting she'd be chin-propping right now, fascination in her expression, but as she is standing she just tilts her head, just-so. "You will never be as close to Hannah as I am." It's spoken with all the assurance of the world. "If I ever allow you to see her again. That is what I am here to talk to you about." Ha, like ANYONE could keep Hannah from seeing him if that's what Hannah wants to do — but Bailey trades heavily on her bearing and that giant-ass gold dragon out there. "You look out for each other. Did that include him keeping an eye out for your escape?" There is a hard look to her, now: make no mistake, Bailey has not forgotten how easily Ulrik appeared to have slipped his leash.

The only reaction Bailey will have to feed on is the slight tightening of lean, hard cut frame and the twitch of scarred hands that seek to curl into fists. Much like a wild canine sensing threat to its pack. Forced to relax hands remain hanging at the convict’s sides, eyes scoring across the goldrider as if he can visually flay the skin from her flesh. On the matter of Hannah, Ulrik has no comment to make for the same could be said of he and his cellmate. “My coming and going had nothing to do with him.” Beat. “Unless you plan on letting him off early for good behavior.” Yes, that’s a sliver of dark amusement there for he’s well acquainted with his buddy’s temperament. “Then I have nothing to say to you about him. What do you want?”

"I want to know who you are." Bailey is perhaps disappointed that she didn't goad him into further ire than is visible by the tensing of his shoulders, but that is what one gets. "I want to know why I should see anything redeeming in you. I want to know why I should visit the Harpers and see if they have done anything since Hannah asked them to re-open the case that led to your conviction." See, Ulrik? She DOES have information you want to know. "I want to know if the weyrleader is right, and if we should just throw you back to the convict population like the dog I think you are."

Trouble. Had been the answer he’d given Hannah when she’d asked accompanied by a wry twist of lips. But for Bailey, the answer won’t be so simple. Tilting his head to one side, the goldrider is observed in much the same way a wolf considers a sound new to its ears. “I am the shadow and the smoke in your eyes. I am the ghost that hides in the night.” Rather poetic for one so low on the food chain isn’t it? “If you are aware of my case then you already know all you need to know. This isn’t my first rodeo,” to quote Sammael, “but I didn’t kill that man. If you’re asking me if I’m capable of killing?” Dark and edged with threat the smirk that unfolds. “In a heartbeat to protect those close to me.” Blunt edged honesty.

"You don't hide well enough," Bailey simply replies, "And you are far more substantial than smoke and shadow." Is that the most back-handed compliment ever, or statement of fact? It is hard to tell with Bailey's calm assessment giving no indication one way or the other. "Well, then. Glad to have that out of the way." Her voice is dry — so dry. "What is Hannah to you?" Her eyes rest on his face, and she doesn't shift from her bones-of-the-earth stillness, a weight to the question that is textured in so many facets.

Bailey somehow manages to achieve something that very few people are able to when it comes to the hard faced convict. Ulrik laughs at her reply. A low rusted sound akin to rocks grating against one another it might be but no less touched with grains of genuine amusement. “Life.” One word but no less weighted than the question that has birthed it.

There is a moment of slow consideration, Bailey turning it over in her head, obviously gauging Ulrik's response. "Fine." She turns, then, to return to where her lifemate is sprawled at the entrance. "I'm leaving, so you won't have a guard, convict." There is a measured pause. "But I wouldn't be flinging myself off the ledge just yet. Hannah is here. Perhaps when she is recovered enough, she would like to see you." Perhaps. If Cha'el and Bailey don't decide to kill him beforehand due to the security risk.

Surprise shows itself in the flare of eyes and then confusion in the drop of heavy brows. “She’s here? In the Weyr?” If he were able to scatter his molecules and send them out on the air to find exactly where Hannah is, nothing of Ulrik would currently be standing rooted to the spot looking about as perplexed as a man can. But alas. Such a thing isn’t possible. “I…” Bits and pieces of that façade crack. “When am I being sent back?” That menacing vision of rose-gold is carefully eyed as Bailey returns to her bonded.

"You're not," Bailey flatly returns at the last, her voice short as she checks her straps, long-term paranoia prompting the regular and practiced motions of her hands. Grey eyes lift from her spot in the sun, one hand resting against the whorled-darkness of her lifemate's hide. "Not yet. Not now. Possibly not ever, if you play your cards right." She's mounting, then, leaving him with that strange statement. "Don't kill yourself!" she calls, as if it's a regular thing people call when leave-taking, and Khalyssrielth launches herself from the ledge with a flurry of powerful haunches and yet more powerful wings.

Deeper that frown becomes until brows ledge over eyes so that with his chin tipped downward there is only a sliver of pale green to be seen. He may by matter of location only, be closer to Hannah but more and more the hostile cold of the Hold is starting to look appealing. At least up there he had something to fill the long dragging hours between dawn and falling boneless onto unforgiving cots. And Sammael. The frosty belly of the Hold yet claims his best friend. His only friend. “Wait! What about Sammael!!??” But Bailey is already gone, leaving Ulrik’s words to be flung back at him by the howling slap of wind, the mocking shades of loneliness seeping once again from out of the walls to toy with his sanity.